Antifreeze / Coolant - Red, Pink, Green ???

Wow I got a heck of a deal then. I paid 21$ for a gallon of the long life at local Toyota dealer in ohio.

 

Let us all know how that works out. However, I'd suggest you mix a littler green and red together in a Gatorade bottle, shake it up, and then see if you REALLY think mixing the two is a grand idea. The Tacoma is an engineered masterpiece of a mid size truck. There is a REASON it uses a specific coolant.

 

Yeah, this will be funny. I've repaired systems where folks have mixed the two. Actually, I guess it isn't funny. But I know for a fact you can't add the regular Prestone green to existing Toyota red. Now if you do a full flush of the red you can prolly switch over to full green. But I don't do it and I couldn't recommend it.

 

I would think even if you flush it clear, you'd still have contaminants of red which could still coagulate with the green and cause issues. But I'm all for him trying it out for us on HIS truck!

 

Mine's been green since '05 or so but look for it to go the way of the DoDO and/or get more expensive much like older Freons.
Formulas are better now about alum. leaching but they really don't want us changing at home and dumping poison down the drains. I just used it because ALL my vehicles were green and it made it easier to keep fresh top offs around.
I'll change everything over to Universal HOAT next time around.
FWIW, I've seen bad stuff from cars with Super Dooper Extended Life Antifreeze meant to last for 100K miles more than green.
people just don't watch it then.

 

I went to Castrol ,paid for a Flush and used their stuff. I believe it's yellow or green lol. No issues for 20k miles and a gain of about 69 horse power after that. jk

 

69 horse power? Do you have other mods which accompanied the coolant switch?

 

You added that "jk". Almost had me

 

I see that all the time , business's want young naive kids that don't talk back and don't have opinion . They are moldable to what they want and they can pay them less , plus they are cheaper to insure and have less medical problems . They can feed them full of shit and the kids will believe it . Where you probably have a brain and actually know something in life , you probably will speak your mind and have a opinion and are "older" and harder to insure . That's the new American way !

 

I'm way late to the thread so all I can say, if it hasn't been covered, is just use what the factory recommends. I went to the dealer for mine. There are so many formulations of anti-freeze out there now that it's ridiculous. I believe my '04 uses "HOAT" if I remember right but I just go to the dealer. Using the wrong anti-freeze is just asking for big problems down the road. They may not show up for 50,000 miles but they "will" show up.

If you want to really learn about anti-freeze as well as anything else liquid when it comes to motorized vehicles head over the BITOG or "Bob Is The Oil Guy". You can learn more there about oil, grease, anti-freeze and oil/fuel additives there than any place on earth. They've even got engineers that create the stuff on that website.

Sorry if you already got this info earlier in the thread. I didn't read through every post.

 

I went over there and there is a new thread started about zerex.....nothing about confirmed ingredients, just 'yes its the same blah blah blah'. I need technical details. Grrr...

guess someone's gonna have to buy both oem pink/red and zerex, take samples, and send off for analysis.

 

Oh, believe me, it may take months but you can find out every single ingredient there is in anti-freeze at BITOG. The same for engine oil or grease. You just have to spend the time and it takes time. Unless you're independently wealthy and never work as well as having no family we are talking months here. You better get a real good surf board and start surfing BITOG if you really want to know what is in every fluid in your vehicle including every fluid you might even "think" of putting in your vehicle. In the meantime I'd just pay the extra and get it from the Toyota dealer rather than take chances.

You can also ask questions there.

 

I'll only do it for the main components. I do oil samples to ensure there are no contaminants in them every once in a while, especially in older vehicles. A good thing to do if you want to check for small signs of coolant which can tell you if you have a headgasket problem.

 

I'm running Amsoil Signature 10-30 in my '04 2.7 down to -15 for short periods of time in the winter. After a couple oil changes at 5000 miles I sent off a oil sample to Blackstone Labs and they told me I should try another 2000 miles on top of the 7500 I ran that oil for. They said the sample looked that good. I don't want to take the chance though. I might some day after a few samples at 7500 miles. I like the safety cushion. I'm running Mobil 1 oil filters as well.

There are places that will test anti-freeze as well but I've never found that necessary.

 

besidses the safety factor of ethylene glycol vs. propylene glycol, anti freeze is antifreeze. There are additives to make it last longer w/o breaking down and that's the point of the newer ones. All to cut down on people changing it often and possibly/ probably throwing poison in the drains that much more often.

Just don't mix them. I always run straight water a couple of flushes and running around for days before changes over.

there used to be a prob with aluminum leaching with old Prestone formulas. (green with more silica) as it had a more scouring effect for rust in the old days of iron blocks but they've smoothed it out for running in later model cars.

I've gotten older and lazier so i don't want to change it as often anymore and will go to (back) to longer life in my vehicles but 100K miles is too much to ask of a fluid to me. They still have some cleaning effects to them and it all that dirt and particles just build up too much and do their own scouring.

i guess if you put on 100K miles in less than 5 yrs. it works fine. If you don't drive much......I've seen some pretty gunked up Red/green/orange....whatever color. Damage is worse from anti freeze failing to me than if wrong kind.

 

Same, mostly green gunk.